Validated learning is not after-the-fact rationalization or a good story designed to hide failure. It is a rigorous method for demonstrating progress when one is embedded in the soil of extreme uncertainty in which startups grow. Validated learning is the process of demonstrating empirically that a team has discovered valuable truths about a startups present and future business prospects. It is more concrete, more accurate, and faster than market forecasting or classical business planning. Learning is the essential unit of progress for startups. The effort that is not absolutely necessary for learning what customers want can be eliminated. This is validated learning, because it is always demonstrated by positive improvements in the startups core metrics. Validated learning is backed up by empirical data collected from real customers. The way forward is to learn to see every startup in any industry as a grand experiment. The question is not “can this product be built?” but “can this product be built?” and “can we build a sustainable business around this set of products and services. Your job is to find a synthesis between your vision and what customers would accept; it wasn’t to capitulate to what customers thought they wanted or to tell customers what they ought to want. True startup productivity: systematically figuring out the right things to build. In the lean startup, every product, every feature, every marketing campaign – everything a startup does – is understood to be an experiment designed to achieve validated learning. Lean thinking: Lean thinking defines value as providing benefit to the customer, anything else is waste. In a manufacturing business, customers don’t care how the product is assembled, only that it works correctly. But in a startup, who the customer is and what the customer might find valuable are unknown, part of the very uncertainty that is an essential part of the definition of a startup. [@Absalom Alila] @Aliraza Sumar @Amos Chege Kirongo @Bancy Ngatia @Bomet S. Brian
